Understanding
by Panruru
Summary: They all learned to be fighters much too young, he knows, but none of them can ever really understand what it means to grow up with Batman for a father.


Robin knows that the others have never really understood him. He can see it in their awe when he masters the most difficult training simulations without breaking a sweat and leads the Titans to victory time and time again without the aid of any superhuman abilities whatsoever. He can see it in their concern when he stays up late into the night investigating the latest criminal activities, shutting himself up in his room and neglecting to hang out with the others for days, sometimes weeks at a time. Most of all, he can see it in their fear when he's forced to get serious and put everything he has into eliminating a threat. It actually scared _him_ a little, that first time, turning to his friends and seeing them flinch away from him. They just couldn't understand the kind of focus that drowns out everything but the objective, the _Mission_, to the point where everything else ceases to be important. Pizza for dinner and afternoons spent playing video games are things he values more than they know, but when push comes to shove he needs to be the one shoving.

They all learned to be fighters much too young, he knows, but none of them can ever really understand what it means to grow up with Batman for a father. He wasn't just raised to be a fighter; he was raised to be a _hero_. He didn't start out like all the others did, learning to defend themselves first and branching out to the protection of the things important to them as they became more capable. He started learning how to help people in trouble right off the bat (so to speak) and gradually became more and more effective at it as he mastered each new kind of training that Batman decided to throw at him. They were rarely people he cared about or even knew; he did it because Batman told him that it was the right thing to do, and because he had learned early on how it felt to be a victim. Being a superhero isn't just something he's chosen to do, like it is for the others. He knows that he won't be the leader of the Teen Titans forever (although the thought is as strange and unwelcome to him as the thought of not being Batman's sidekick had once been), but he knows that he'll be fighting crime until the day he dies. It's who he _is_, who he was raised to be. That's why Robin has to keep fighting even when the others beg him to take a break, insist that he's becoming obsessive, start to turn from him. Giving up, even temporarily, just isn't in his nature.

Sometimes Robin suspects that Slade understands. He can see it in the way Slade encourages him to push past his limits every single day, not because it's necessarily needed at the time but because it makes him stronger. He can see it in the way Slade manipulates him, using Robin's determination and his need to protect the people around him to his advantage in ways that no one else can, because no one else _knows him_ that well. Most of all, he can see it in Slade's appeals to the part of Robin that even Bruce doesn't know very well anymore, the tiny part of him that survived looking into his parents' empty gazes and still remembers how to have fun. It's that part of him that still secretly gets a little thrill when he soars between buildings at the end of a line or smashes the high score on Cyborg and Beast Boy's favorite game of the week. And, much as he tries to deny it even in the sanctuary of his own mind, it's that part of him that felt more alive than he ever had when Slade made him steal. He knows that it's wrong and he hates himself for it, but when he was breaking the law with Slade's colours branded all over him and the thought of that trigger binding him more effectively than bars of steel he'd felt more free than he had in a hundred brighter nights spent patrolling the city by his own will.

The only thing that makes Robin doubt Slade after having the villain's understanding of his psyche thrown in his face so many times is that Slade's still trying. Being a hero isn't just something he's chosen to do; it's who he _is_. It's the foundation for all of those qualities that Slade seems to find so intriguing, and he honestly doesn't think he could exist without it. Not without sacrificing everything that makes him _him_. So no matter how many times Slade tries, no matter how persistent and how clever and how ruthless he is, it simply can't be done. Robin cannot be turned.

Not even if he wants to be.

* * *

A/N: Just felt that I should stop being such a lurk and actually post something on here (or at least, something that I'll actually own up to). Thanks for reading. 


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